Music videos are where artists get to build worlds, inhabit alter egos, and translate sound into cinematic experiences. In South Africa, the art-form has always navigated budget constraints, shifting priorities and the demands of online consumption, so – when we come across a video like ‘Go Getter’ it feels especially poignant to discuss. Furthermore, this extraordinary collaboration involved the creative expression of two artists who are of a calibre attuned to category defying work. 

Directed by filmmaker Meghan Daniels and performed by rapper, host, and multi-hyphenate Moozlie, ‘Go Getter’ unfolds as a one-woman audition universe; a surreal, character-driven immersion into persona, stereotypes, and the layered emotional territory of feminine performance. Moozlie, ever the shapeshifter, walks unflinchingly into amorphic character acting, delivering performances that are both uncanny and richly embodied. From the over-filled diva to the gangster-leaning mob boss, each character becomes a subversion of itself — masterfully expressed by Moozlie and crafted by the team.

The music video sits in the lineage of pop-cultural shape-shifting — the same tradition that gave us Missy Elliott’s hyper-visual ‘Misdemeanour’ era  and Beyoncé’s Sasha Fierce, artists who understood that the music video could be a portal into a more elastic, expressive self. The video is playful, strange, deeply considered, and ultimately built on an unusual depth of creative trust, as Moozlie and Meghan share with me later in our conversation. 

For Meghan, the seeds of filmmaking were planted long before she ever picked up a camera, and she describes her childhood as slow, interior, and filled with watching the women around her. As a quiet, introspective kid and self-described as a bit of a loner, film became a way for Meghan to process feelings, find relatability and escape when she needed it. As she explains, “I was raised by my Mom and Gran — two women who are tough as nails. Because they were always busy working, they’d keep me occupied with TV and arts and crafts. I spent hours watching Backstage, Generations and Isidingo with my Gran. As a ‘thank you’ for walking with and helping my Mom get groceries, I was also allowed to rent a DVD – and that’s all I’d want to do over weekends. 
My Gran taught me dark, self-deprecating humour as a coping mechanism, while my Mom unintentionally showed me the duality of femininity and the spectrum of gender — I’d watch her blow-dry her hair in the morning and later smoke a cigarette and fix things around the house. All of this shaped the stories I’m drawn to now: ones that make space for the off-kilter and the odd, that challenge and tease expectations and poke boxes — especially when it comes to identity exploration” 

Her instincts naturally gravitated towards short form — music videos, experimental shorts, compressed narratives. I wholeheartedly believe short form often demands extraordinary mastery precisely because of its constraints; because time becomes both the medium and the boundary; Meghan notes “there’s something about the containment of limitations, it can be freeing”; the boundaries force you to think sharper, to be inventive within what’s possible.”

Those instincts shaped the initial treatment Meghan created for Go Getter, which grew out of a fascination with play, exaggeration, and the freedom that comes from not taking oneself too seriously. Meghan reflects that she pulled references from Cindy Sherman’s early character portraits, Nadia Lee Cohen’s cinematic expressions, and the exaggerated characters and surreal visuals of Busta Rhymes’ ‘Gimme Some More’, and Janelle Zanaughti AKA Uglyworldwide’s explorations of queer gender expression. Those of us raised on the iconography of the MTV and VH1 era will know that music were entire imaginative ecosystems that remain treasure trover of inspirational material, for those of willing to look.

Meghan emphasises, though, that the lyrics of the song themselves steered the direction as much as anything else. “A lot of the lyrics are super strong and in your face, but some are playful and silly in a good way,” she explains. “That gave space to develop this concept that I had wanted to write and shoot for a while, and create characters who sit between those worlds — a bit funny, a bit strange, but still saying something.” That “something” was also a pushback against the assumptions often made about women in music. “Artists are often portrayed as glamorous, sexy, almost perfect,” Meghan says, “and while there’s space for that, it can also create stereotypes, boxes, and even a kind of fetishisation especially when it comes to femme and Queer artists. We wanted to confront that by pushing some of these ‘boxes’ to the extreme but also to play with the full spectrum of what femininity is and can be, asking what happens when femininity refuses to stay in one lane — when it slips, mutates, and multiplies into forms that are glamorous, grotesque, terrifying and sexy all at once.

When the concept reached Moozlie, the alignment was immediate. Known for her shapeshifting personal style and her ability to wear multiple hats across media roles, she saw herself mirrored in the framework. “I play around with looks and style all the time,” Moozlie says. “I wear a lot of different hats — hosting, styling, creative direction — and this song speaks to all of that. One of the lyrics is ‘I do it on my own baby, I’m a go-getter,’ so the idea of doing everything on my own made complete sense. When Meghan sent the brief, I didn’t want to change a single thing. Everything she put into the initial moodboard, except one character we dropped because of time, is exactly what ended up in the video. That’s unheard of.”

Moozlie is emphatic in explaining that she surrendered entirely to Meghan’s vision; which, too, is unusual for an artist of Moozlie’s conceptual clarity. “Usually a music video is more about the artist and the song, but this one was kind of the Meghan show — and I’m so glad it was. Nothing was too far or too weird. I just threw myself into whatever she wanted to do.”

Moozlie truly felt this as a meeting-of-minds equally. “I like working with people who are the ‘Moozlies’ of what they do — people who are the rockstars in their own field,” she explains, “I bring a template and a world I want to explore, but I’m not going to impose it. It’s about taking my idea, bringing it into her experience and her background, and then figuring out how to merge that together.”

The character development process, astonishingly, took place in a single day. Despite the time constraints, Meghan insisted on depth rather than haste. “We asked: what do they weigh, what do they smell like, what music do they listen to?” she recalls. “We bought perfumes, sprayed the room, and played their soundtracks. It helped Mooze bring her own interpretation because she had to make them her own.” For Moozlie, what emerged was the experience of possession and embodiment; “these were different people with completely different life stories. Every character had a different perfume, different music — the whole energy in the room would change. It got quite deep. It felt like I was in acting school for a couple of days.”

While Moozlie remains deeply independent and fiercely versatile, she explains that the experience helped her digest the ironies of her song’s central message: “The song says, ‘I do it on my own,’ but honestly that’s the biggest lie — who does anything on their own? It’s more about that internal spirit of believing in yourself so much that you can do it.”

The audition framework, each character performing for a panel, with Moozlie herself seated among the judges, also demonstrates a conceptual loop; at the end, when Moozlie appears as the judge, it elicits a few readings. Are we reflecting the way we’re constantly policed, judged, and boxed in — the expectations placed on our identities, what counts as “right” or “wrong”? Is it a mirror to our own internal judgement? Or is it simply the absurdism of it all, with Moozlie genuinely bewildered by the characters she’s just witnessed? “The fact that these people are auditioning to be in a Moozlie music video, and then you see me as the judge at the end — it’s deep,” she says. “I’m judging myself through the process.”

For Moozlie, the project sits within a longer lineage of women in hip-hop who have always needed to push boundaries; “being able to express yourself in ways people don’t expect from you in this genre is important. This video let me do that.” As filming wrapped, both artist and director found themselves lingering inside the emotional residue of the work. “I’m still dealing with everything I learned from putting this video together,” Moozlie admits. “It filled me up. It stretched me. I’m glad we’re having this conversation about it — it’s important.”

We tend to be fixated on polished outcomes — the final video, the glossy stills, the metrics, the moment of release — Go Getter is a reminder that the real engine of artistic work is its process. When speed and output eclipse contemplation, this conversation is our reminder that to witness creative works is to reflect with artists like Meghan and Moozlie as they articulate, dissect, and honour the making-of with each other and the broader team that made Go Getter happen. 

This is a piece of work that truly is the result of a hard-earned hunger for creating; flexing the kind of creative muscle that develops only from years of making something out of very little, and insisting on vision, by everyone involved in its making. 

Credits 

Music by & Starring: Moozlie @moozlie

Director: Meghan Daniels @meghan.daniels

Producer: Sbusisiwe Luhlongwane @busi.luhlo & Leigh Mert @leighmert

DOP: Robin Shepherd-Taylor @robinshepherdtaylor

Focus Puller: Rhett Mullins @rhett_mullins

Loader: Tafadzwa Pasi @this_is_x_files

Gaffer: Leonard Da Cambra @leonarddacambra

Spark: Doc Jantjies & Brandon Le Roux 

Grips: Ndumiso Ninela @ndumisoo

MUA: Andiswa Ngcobo @andingcobo

SFX MUA: Natasha du Toit @tashtoit

Stylist: Karabo Nthibane @keketso.karabo

Hair Stylist: Justine Nomz Alexander @justine_nomz

Choreographer: Nicola Pharo @pharonicola25

Post-production: StrangeLove @strangelove_post

Offline editor: Tumelo Rankoe @2024tido

Online editor: Darian Simon @darian_dawood

Colourist: Nic Apostoli @nic_apostoli

Sound design: Sean Roos @missu2missu & Oliver Stutz @oli.audio at SuperNormal @supernormal.audio

Sound Operator: Khanya Cona @khanyacona

Designer: Julia Schimautz @juliakatarzyna_ at DTAN Studio @dtan.studio

Photographer & BTS: Mduduzi Motha @ndlebenkomo_jpg

Unit Manager: Tawanda Mavaz @michaeltawas

Unit Assistant: Shephard Mavaza 

Unit Assistant: Tinashe Majere

Catering: Ronelle Trimble @missdivatrimble

Brand Manager: Dané du Plessis @daneduplessis92

Moozlie’s assistant: Musa Mthembu @musaa.mthembu

Music Producer: Fistola Inecut @fistola.inecut

Label: Nomuzi Mabena Music @nomuzi_mabena_music_official

Special thanks to: 

Media Film Service @mediafilmservice

Era by DJ Zinhle @erabydjzinhle

UCF Creative Programme @cottonfestjhb

Pulse Crew @pulsecrewcape

Soundspeed @soundspeed.co.za

SuperNormal @supernormal.audio

Strangelove @strangelove_post

DTAN Studio @dtan.studio

and the entire crew

Written by Holly Beaton

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